For the first time in its history, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey asked teens about their social media use.
In 2023, 77 percent of high school students used social media several times a day, according to the survey, which was conducted in the spring and had responses from more than 20,000 high school students.
The new survey question was added in response to the rising concerns about the youth mental health crisis and conversations about the role social media use has played in that, said Kathleen Ethier, the director of adolescent and school health for the CDC, in an interview.
Addressing adolescents’ worsening mental health has been a top priority for school districts and policymakers in recent years. Many of the solutions deal with lessening the impact of social media platforms, which are often called out as the driving force behind the surge in youth mental health challenges.
More than 200 school districts have sued major social media companies over their platforms’ role in the youth mental health crisis. Schools across the country are also restricting cellphone use in their buildings, in part to curb students’ social media use.
State and federal policymakers have been crafting legislation that would greatly curtail youth access to social media. For instance, in Florida, children younger than 14 will not be allowed to have social media accounts starting Jan. 1, 2025, and 14- and 15-year-olds will need parental permission before they can set up accounts.
And U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, earlier this year, called for a warning label on social media platforms alerting users that they are “associated with significant mental health harms in adolescents.”
The results from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey are on par with survey data from other organizations that have tracked teen social media use. For instance, the Pew Research Center’s “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023” report found that 46 percent of teens are online “almost constantly” and 47 percent are online “several times a day.”
Teen girls were more likely than teen boys to use social media several times a day, the report found. And those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning were just as likely to use social media several times a day as their cisgender and heterosexual peers.
“This suggests that there are other factors driving the youth mental health crisis for LGBTQ+ youth, like experience of stigma and violence,” Ethier said. The CDC plans to provide additional analysis later in the fall.
The agency also anticipates adding the social media use question in the next round of the Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2025 to “add to the conversation,” Ethier said.
